


Shaping Up, Breaking Down

by m_madeleine



Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: BDSM, Canonical Character Death, Dissociation, Dom/sub Play, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Painplay, Post-Canon, Safeword Fail, Under-negotiated Kink, friends with benefits but also with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-06 13:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_madeleine/pseuds/m_madeleine
Summary: Maverick has never known his limits. Not up in the air. And not in bed, either.





	Shaping Up, Breaking Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplecoffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/gifts).



> Written as a treat for simplecoffee for the Hurt Comfort Exchange. Seeing Top Gun nominated got me so excited! I've been wanting to try my hand at this pairing for a while and your amazingly detailed letter was very inspirational - hope you enjoy <3

Maverick should’ve known he and Ice would find common ground eventually. Being the only two of their class left at Top Gun helped, probably. Out here, Ice is the only one who really gets it. All the other instructors are a lot older, which makes for interesting conversations, but also a lot of distance. And while the next student generation is about their age, they haven’t quite walked the walk yet. You come out of Top Gun like out of a fire, and sometimes Maverick still feels a bit singed around the edges.

Maybe if he had gotten lonely, he’d have let one of the students buy him a beer anyway. Very ill-advisedly. Lucky he doesn’t have to make an ass of himself, because Ice is right there. And lately, Ice has been pretty damn close.

Who’d fucking blame him? Ice is magnetic. Maverick loves attention. They both do, actually, just like they’re obsessed with jabs and one-upping each other.

Charlie’s been gone for a while now. They parted friendly enough, but he also knows they won’t be speaking anytime soon, much less anything else. It had put him off dating for a while, still does. But then, this isn’t quite the same, that thing with Ice. It’s good, though, on multiple levels. They can have a beer and play an extremely competitive game of darts and talk about the job. Or they can talk about the job with Ice’s hand down his shirt, resting possessively over his heart, drawing small circles with his thumb, and Maverick will lose at darts, maybe on purpose, then get on his knees, Ice’s hands heavy in his hair.

Ice has nice hands. Most pilots end up with a lot callouses, even with the gloves; their workouts alone do a number on your skin. Ice’s are soft. That makes it hurt all the more, the slaps, the sharp bite of nails. Maverick hides the most telling bruises, especially the bites — because those would invite questions, when everybody knows his social life these days is all Ice and no women — but no harm in letting some of the others show occasionally. It’s a bit of a thrill. And he’s got a reputation anyway. So what if he gets rough sometimes?

And this is where they fit. Because that very first time, even though neither of them really knew what the hell they were doing, Ice saw him lean into his nails, and pushed harder.

Maverick has always known what he wants — at least, he’s always thought so. Here, he gets more than he ever knew to want. And it never even has to have a name. Not that that’s bad. Sometimes, Ice will give him a particular kinda smile, a private one, soft by his standards, and Maverick will know things are different now and Ice actually likes him, though he doesn’t feel the need to say it.

Maverick doesn’t, either.

***

They do kind of talk about it. Once.

They’re at Ice’s place, in the middle of things, so to speak, when Ice suddenly stops touching him. It takes Maverick a minute to catch up, but when he does, he sees Ice sitting on the side of the bed, frowning.

Maverick frowns back.

“What?”

Ice sighs.

“This is some intense shit, Mav. Don’t actually wanna fuck you up for good. Maybe we should have…safety measures. In case you change your mind.”

Maverick groans and sprawls out on the bed. How Ice gets regular cotton sheets feeling so nice, he’ll never get.

“Do we? Can’t I just tell you to stop?”

“With your face in the pillows, too?”

Maverick shrugs.

“I can tap out?”

Ice snorts.

“In fucking Morse code?”

Maverick shrugs again, stretches his arm to slide his hand back under Ice’s shirt. Ice shakes his head — and drops the issue. It’s obvious he’s not too happy about it, but well. The danger is kind of the point, isn’t it? Otherwise Maverick could just keep hurling himself into the abyss. At least he’s not responsible for millions of dollars of equipment here. Or people’s lives.

***

It’s Friday, the end of an incredibly stressful week. The students are getting reckless in their competitiveness, and they almost had another casualty on their hands. Maverick feels too big for his skin all day, and when he has to watch a student pull the plane out of the way of a collision at the last second, he’s just about done. He catches Ice’s look over lunch, and that’s what makes this work, because it only takes a glance and he knows Ice got it.

Except Ice is usually the one trusted with reprimanding the students, so Maverick goes home on his own. Does some cursory cleaning, because yeah, Ice won’t care while they’re fucking, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna tear him a new one afterwards if his place looks like shit. Spends the remaining staring at the wall. The usual nervous excitement is mixing with something weird and off-kilter, but it doesn’t matter. Ice will fix this, he always does.

After a while, there’s a car outside. He takes time to listen to Ice’s familiar steps out on his porch, only gets up when he hears the bell. Something flutters over Ice’s face when he opens the door, like he’s happy to see him, but, as usual, his face shuts instantly. He throws Maverick a cool look, then puts a hand on Maverick’s chest and pushes him inside abruptly, like it’s a punishment for making him wait. Maverick feels a thrill rush through him.

They move to the bedroom quickly, losing clothes along the way. Crowding him up against the doorway, Ice grips a handful of his hair. Maverick turns his hand into Ice’s wrist, kisses his palm. Ice laughs. Shoves his fingers into Maverick’s mouth roughly, and Maverick chokes on _want_. Falls to his knee, without Ice making him, moves to fumble with Ice’s belt. Ice steps on his crotch and Maverick swears, pain mixing with arousal, can’t stop himself from moaning, rocking forward. When Ice cups his jaw roughly, Maverick leans into it, eagerly – and then Ice shifts his foot and suddenly, the pain becomes sharper. It takes him a moment to remember the fucked-up muscle in his thigh. He blinks through the ache. It’s…not bad, right? He tries to make himself remember he _likes_ Ice hurting him—

But he’s already somewhere far away. Not quite sure, where. Drowning, maybe. The noise in in his ears sounds one hell of a lot like waves crashing. He gasps for air on reflex, but then there’s too much of that, too. Shivers are running down his back like drops of ice-cold water and there’s something he should be remembering, but his heart is beating too hard—

“Mav.”

Maverick blinks. It takes him a moment to lose the blurriness and see Ice kneeling next to him, his usual sharp look turned even more serious.

“You’re hurting. Where?”

Ice has the kind of voice that makes you answer, whether you want to or not.

“Tore my quad once,” Maverick replies, automatically. His mouth still feels numb.

Ice makes a face.

“Shit. So much for tapping out, you dumbass.” Ice sighs. “Get up, let’s get that checked out.”

“No, don’t.” Maverick manages to catch Ice’s hand before it lands on his shoulder. “It’s healed, doesn’t really hurt, it’s just…” He frowns. It only just occurred to him, what _it_ is— “Goose.”

Ice’s face becomes guarded at the same time as his eyes grow soft.

“Thought you weren’t injured?” Ice asks quietly.

Maverick shakes his head.

“Wasn’t, no. This was… before. Some routine fitness thing.”

It’d hurt like a bitch. All the more because it’d been his fault, he’d been dumb, hadn’t warmed up properly, taken on too much too quickly. Maybe it should’ve taught him a lesson or two, but he can be slow on the uptake with things he doesn’t wanna hear, he’ll admit that.

Goose had come to see him all the time. Brought funny cut-outs from the local newspapers. They’d gotten so loud they kept earning stern looks from the nurses. Singing and laughing with Goose hadn’t exactly helped the physical healing process, every breath resulting in painful tugging, but it’d been worth it to chase the emptiness of staring at the ceiling away.

Shit.

Maverick’s closed his eyes again, so when something touches his back, he jumps a little. But there’s a rustle, and Ice’s jacket is around his shoulders, and then Ice’s arms.

He sinks back into the smell of leather. His head is still too light, but he’s almost comfortable. With his eyes closed, he’s drifting back and forth, like on a mellow tide. With Ice holding him tight, he’s anchored. He could stay like that, for a while (and he’s too out of it now, but later he’s going to remember that it isn’t like Ice not to bitch about sitting on the floor when there’s perfectly good furniture nearby. And what it means that he didn't, anyway.)

Ice bites his earlobe lightly and Maverick shivers. Ice’s hand is resting on his thigh, drawing small circles with his thumb.

“Don’t be dumb next time, okay,” Ice says quietly. It’s not a question.

Maverick smiles.


End file.
